Topic: FUD is your friend. (Read 1499 times)

 

Well, I wasn't claiming that Bitcoin is on its way to become relevant for Joe Shmoe, if that ever happens it will take a long time. I do claim that Bitcoin has a lot more room to grow from where it is now, without being very relevant to the regular Joe. It still hasn't really conquered any niche, talking about mainstream appeal is a waste of time at this point. Bitcoin is so small that there is actually multiple levels for it to grow before it's really mainstream.

First I want to see Bitcoin make it big in one market alone. The only one it has had any real effect so far is Silk Road, probably because with SR it's the easiest fit. I see a lot of potential for many other markets though, from virtual commodity markets to online gambling and then basically to anything that involves small transactions.

Also I don't think it's always necessary to think of it from the perspective of the user. A lot of enterpreneurs and companies that receive a lot of small transactions just love Bitcoin because it's so much cheaper, they need to give less away to middle men. There are also no chargebacks. As long as using Bitcoin is made easy for their customers (think bitpay and bitcoinspinner for starters), I could see companies pushing for Bitcoin usage.

The biggest problem right now are the uncertainties concerning the legal status of Bitcoin, how it's regulated and then of course the volatility of the exchange rate is another problem. Even with these concerns I feel that unless something fatal happens, Bitcoin will do fine. It's just a matter of time.

I agree with this...he won't really care until it actually fails and he can't pay his way with it. Change is hard, and there has to be a larger incentive for change than the relative change itself. Apart from decentralization, what do bitcoins really have to offer Joe Shmoe that nothing else does? It's not cheaper to get in, it's not easier to get in, no one is throwing btc's at them (like cc's, either in work or for nothing). Hardly anyone is accepting them. Either BTC has to do these better than fiat (ie much more cheaply, which it isn't), or fiat has to fail so hard as to cost them a lot more than doing it with btc. The second is more likely to happen than not, but there are tons and tons more people trying to keep that afloat than working on bitcoins.

What do bitcoins offer the world apart from a backup? I'm not putting btc down...I genuinely can't think of any reason Joe Shmoe needs it yet. They don't care about anonymously sending money from Thailand to Ecuador. What next?

I agree with you that it's unique, but is it unique along axes that Joe Shmoe cares about? If Joe Shmoe doesn't care about a central point of failure in a currency, we can rattle on for years about how nobody can subvert bitcoin and he still won't care.

I don't quite agree with this. I mean, it's true for many conventional technologies but it's not like Bitcoin has a real competitor out there. It's not VHS vs Betamax or something like that, Bitcoin is a truly unique technology. It's the first decentralized digital monetary system. Currently the only real level of competition that applies to Bitcoin is centralized vs decentralized and I believe that decentralization is winning. Everything in our society is becoming less centralized slowly but surely, that is why Bitcoin has an edge in the long run.

It's completely possible that a true competing technology will emerge, some other decentralized currency that might or might not be superior to Bitcoin but still manages to become more significant than Bitcoin. This is very possible. There might be a superior cryptocurrency in the future or a totally different kind of currency that doesn't even use cryptography. That's fine by me, if someone comes up with something better I'll gladly jump on board. But as it is right now, Bitcoin is a unique technology that over the long run has a much better chance of growing than declining.

Of course there is a chance that something will destroy Bitcoin, either massive legal troubles or technical failures. Even in this case the idea behind Bitcoin is not going anywhere, there would be another decentralized currency that salvages the best of Bitcoin and makes it even better.

This.  The graveyard of technology is filled with examples.

hehe, you seem a bit less sure now...

I think the demand for a scarce, sound digital financial instrument is so ubiquitous that Bitcoin will inevitably fill this void. The crown of establishment-based currencies continues to be tarnished. I feel its most probable that Bitcoin will have its day.

Of course, people will be people and I can be wrong.

We know there is no inevitability when it comes to bitcoin.  It faces many hurdles.  In many ways, it's already overcome the easiest ones: the technical challenges and proof of concept.  Now comes the hard part: how a pseudo anonymous currency interacts with the real world banking system, where identification of users and anti money laundering and anti terrorist legislation works against some of the best features of bitcoin.  We can't just wave these challenges away or wish they didn't exist.

I'm not sure about this statement.

Look at the ubiquity of PHP. Everyone agrees it's a piece of crap language, and its own "designer" openly admits he never intended for it to be used the way it gets used. Yet it's still hugely popular among programmers. Same with Java, or . The arguments people make in favor of Java or PHP are that sure, it isn't ideal, but it's good enough and has a lot of infrastructure around it. The same thing can be said about existing payment methods. Even if bitcoin is 100% technically superior to all of them, there are network effects and general inertia that mean that it might never become mainstream.

I do think it will grow significantly from where it is now, but the better technology doesn't always win. On the other hand, "eventually" statements can't be falsified, so I guess you could argue that good technology will still eventually overcome bad technology in spite of network effects, and we just haven't had the time to observe that happen much in the computing industry.

Bitcoin just needs more time. People don't easily trust new things with their hard earned monies. But the longer bitcoin stay with us, the more ppl will trust it.

Hell, even I'm not 100% sure if there's nasty bug hiding and will eat my coins someday, and I'm bitcoin advocate. So we need to understand that 'normal' people are affraid even more. So we must be patient and time will do miracles.

Next major spike in bitcoin awareness should be near end of this year, when block reward is halved. There will be a lot of internet media coverage and people will see that bitcoin is working like advertised and its not a scam or ponzi.

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Let's say you are confident Bitcoin is a viable protocol and that it could succeed if only people knew about it and used it.

Yet individuals and purported financial experts come along and make false and fearful accusations about Bitcoin, turning potential Bitcoin users away. I imagine this disturbs many of you; however, if you truly believe Bitcoin is a sound product, you will know the truth will inevitably come to light; either through Bitcoin's resilience or more people demonstrating what it truly is.

In fact, it gives you even more time to invest in Bitcoin overall. So, relax, profit off the dips and peaks and stock up on Bitcoins.

This is why I smile every time I see an enemy of Bitcoin because it will only make me richer going forward: My Bitcoin savings have more time to grow.